I brought it to Taylor at Mad Monk Tea for some advice on picking a proper Pu'er for it, and he set me up with a 50g brick of a 2004 YiWu Sheng. We brewed a couple different teas in it to try them out, and Taylor said it was as good as any of his $200 pots, although he thinks it is Hong Ni clay. I paid $13.

I told myself that I wasn't going to explore the World of Pu for a while yet, but this pot is just too nice to not use. Further down the rabbit hole I go....

My order from sampletea.com came today. I'm very impressed with their samples, they are carefully wrapped and include a photo what the whole bing looks like so if you want to hunt it down later you can. Also, the teacups and pots were packed with great care. I bought this teapot:

Some of the pots I bought before said that were 40ml, but this one is much smaller! (maybe the ebay sellers don't fill their pots to the brim when the measure them?) Still, I like it. I always wonder if I paid too much, but it's a color and size that I don't have in my collection yet and it has no issues-- the walls are thicker than I thought they would be, but this isn't such a bad thing. Small pots can be tough to keep warm.

I wonder if this other pot from them which is 5 times the price is fives times as good?

I'm almost tempted to find out... like I said, they did such a good job packing everything (each item in it's own little hard plastic box or metal tin) and labeling everything... (I have perfect labels to paste in to my tea-journal, see the sample box in the photo) -- that it inspires some confidence. I like this company.

The workmanship on the more expensive pot looks finer for certain. Hmmmmmm...but is it worth it??

Sadly I've been having issues with that little black pot. It has a faint clay-smell that I thought I'd gotten rid of... but... no...it's back. It's not a strong one at all, and I can't taste it's impact on the tea. But, I'm glad that I hav another option for my aged puerh (also bought from sample tea, you get what you pay for there. The $40 little black pot it's worth just that much and no more-- my more expensive $120 pot from them, however, is perfect. In fact, I'm buying a 2nd one in a larger size.)

In other news... After doing all this research on the history of the tree-stump yixing (see this thread: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=18526) I really wanted to own one so I searched high and low for a nice small one and this is what I found:

It's about 90ml, and very simple. Today I stumbled on to another fact about this history of this style. During worlds fairs early in the 20th century tree-stump yixings were a staple item at the "China" pavilion.

But to make them appeal to western sensibilities glaze was added.

In my previous thread I said that this was a a trait of exports to the British, but the world's fair connection (starting with paris) makes it all make more sense.

It also explains why if you look at your grandma's house she might have one of these even if she's never been to China!

I'm now doing research in the older style "gong chun" -- I find these histories fascinating. How a simple household item can hold so much meaning.

Also, for the collectors and lovers of shui ping I'm starting to suspect that contemporary potters shun this style because it reminds them of the Cultural Revolution when creativity was really shut down at the yixing factory 1. To us it's a simple functional style, but maybe it means something more-- I have a poster of "100 contemporary Yixing Teapots" and among them there is so much diversity, but old styles are there too: tree stump, and simple styles like "dragon's egg" and "flat" -- but not one of the pots on the poster is shui ping hu. Coincidence?

Muadeeb wrote:I brought it to Taylor at Mad Monk Tea for some advice on picking a proper Pu'er for it, and he set me up with a 50g brick of a 2004 YiWu Sheng. We brewed a couple different teas in it to try them out, and Taylor said it was as good as any of his $200 pots, although he thinks it is Hong Ni clay. I paid $13.

I told myself that I wasn't going to explore the World of Pu for a while yet, but this pot is just too nice to not use. Further down the rabbit hole I go....

Wow what a nice catch... I'm always suspicious of pots with the bumpy surface look. Never seen on in person. Good to know they can work out well.

futurebird wrote:Sadly I've been having issues with that little black pot. It has a faint clay-smell that I thought I'd gotten rid of... but... no...it's back. It's not a strong one at all, and I can't taste it's impact on the tea. But, I'm glad that I hav another option for my aged puerh (also bought from sample tea, you get what you pay for there. The $40 little black pot it's worth just that much and no more-- my more expensive $120 pot from them, however, is perfect. In fact, I'm buying a 2nd one in a larger size.)

In other news... After doing all this research on the history of the tree-stump yixing (see this thread: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=18526) I really wanted to own one so I searched high and low for a nice small one and this is what I found:

It's about 90ml, and very simple. Today I stumbled on to another fact about this history of this style. During worlds fairs early in the 20th century tree-stump yixings were a staple item at the "China" pavilion.

But to make them appeal to western sensibilities glaze was added.

In my previous thread I said that this was a a trait of exports to the British, but the world's fair connection (starting with paris) makes it all make more sense.

It also explains why if you look at your grandma's house she might have one of these even if she's never been to China!

I'm now doing research in the older style "gong chun" -- I find these histories fascinating. How a simple household item can hold so much meaning.

Also, for the collectors and lovers of shui ping I'm starting to suspect that contemporary potters shun this style because it reminds them of the Cultural Revolution when creativity was really shut down at the yixing factory 1. To us it's a simple functional style, but maybe it means something more-- I have a poster of "100 contemporary Yixing Teapots" and among them there is so much diversity, but old styles are there too: tree stump, and simple styles like "dragon's egg" and "flat" -- but not one of the pots on the poster is shui ping hu. Coincidence?

I never had the clay taste from the little pot, i've been using it about 2-3 times a day for the past week and haven't experienced any sort of clay taste, I didn't season it either, just used it out of the box. could it be inconsistencies in clay or make?

So it is you who ended up buying it? I was after that pot as well, but you were first. Good quality aged duan ni. Enjoy it!

Thanks Already have! I wanted something small to brew some shu pu'er so I can actually exhaust the leaves without drinking 5L of tea. Also, I liked the designs and see how prominent they can get with tea residue. The little tag that came with it says it was fired 1160C-1180C but it mentions zhu ni sha so I don't know if it is a generic tag or not. If so, this would make it high fired no?